Asia-Pacific taking North American e-commerce share

Despite North America typically holding the largest slice of e-commerce sales, its grip on the sector is loosening quickly, reports finchannel.com.

Despite North America typically holding the largest slice of e-commerce sales, its grip on the sector is loosening quickly, reports finchannel.com.

While the US and Canada accounted for 38.1 per cent of all online sales in 2010 according to estimates from eMarketer, the figure dropped to 35.6 per cent in 2011. Now, that figure has dwindled even more, falling to 33.4 per cent.

Furthermore, shares of sales in Western Europe are also dropping. While they accounted for 28.7 per cent of all online B2C sales in 2010, eMarketer.com expects that figure to drop by 2.5 percentage points this year.

The reason why these two powers are losing their grip on the market is due to the burgeoning Asia-Pacific market. ‘A growing middle class’ and an increase in web access in the region is allowing consumers to make an online payment for goods, fueling an e-commerce explosion.

By next year, 34 per cent of all e-commerce sales will come from Asia-Pacific, up eight points over 2010; eventually taking North America’s e-commerce throne.

In Asia-Pacific specifically, China will become the main source of e-commerce, overtaking traditional leader Japan. Its share of B2C e-commerce is set to make a 10 percentage point increase on their efforts (a mere 3.7 per cent of total e-commerce share) in 2010.